Multifunctional Material and Aerospace Structures Optimization Lab

On February 22nd, the Maestro Lab had the opportunity to host senate and congressional staffers in the VR Studio. They were all gifted a small SMA band that would always morph back into the shape of Texas when heated. They heard about all that the Maestro Lab is doing to advance space concepts using SMAs and how we’re utilizing VR to create the next generation learning experience.

After two days of interviewing and filming and a week of work by Uprooted Productions, we are excited to share the story of our team:

This last week the students in the Maestro Lab were involved in multiple STEM outreach programs, emphasizing the laboratory’s commitment to education. [Read more…] about STEM outreach week at Maestro

Once again the Maestro group had a strong presence at the SciTech  conference, the biggest aerospace conference in the US with more than 4200 participants and 2000 technical papers. Representing the lab, PhD student Pedro Leal and Dr. Darren Hartl presented four technical papers related to the avian-inspired and EVA glove projects (all papers are listed below). [Read more…] about MAESTRO Team Attends AIAA SciTech in Orlando

As a means off blowing end-of-the-semester stress, the MAESTRO Team gathered at casa de Hartl for another round of morale building and pride crushing volleyball. A full 20 players participated in the four-team round-robin competition. In the end, the “Slat Cove Winners” (Scholten, Patterson, White, Garza, and French visiting student Thomas Thollot) and “HRBB Fully Loaded” (Brazilian visiting student Bia Borges, Pedro Savi, Hartl, Cabezuela, and Alyssa Saenz) tied with three wins and one loss each. A Wiffle Ball game followed, with Hartl (pitcher) learning that some students neglect to mention that they were high school baseball players on their resumés. The evening concluded with a Secret Santa gift exchange organized by Patrick Walgren.

For more pictures, see the Recreation page.

You know you are reading a WIRED article when it begins: “HUMANITY MAY BE divided on a great many issues, but most would agree that it would be very cool to have airplane wings made of shapeshifting metal.” Along with collaborators Jim Mabe (Boeing Research and Technology) and Othmane Benafan (NASA-Glenn Research Center), Dr. Hartl was fortunate to work with a good science and technology reporter to summarize some of the most important work currently happening in shape memory alloys.

Read the entire article HERE.

This fall, researchers from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University teamed up with Siemens to develop manned aircraft completely powered by electric propulsion systems. [Read more…] about MAESTRO and TEES Work with Siemens to Advance Electric Aviation

Dr. Hartl and graduate student William Scholten were invited to present their research on the fluid-structure interaction analysis of the SMA-based Slat Cove Filler at the Cradle User’s Conference in Tokyo, Japan. [Read more…] about Hartl and Scholten Invited to Share Their Work at International CFD Software User’s Conference in Tokyo

Most of us take flying in an airplane for granted. We book our tickets, sit through the long check-in lines, and if we’re lucky, take off on time to our chosen destination. Day in and day out we do this without any regard to the age and health of the airplane we’re flying on.

[Read more…] about Hartl Wins New NSF Grant on Embedded Sensory Particles